GamerTab
That was an excellent one.
Majorthebys
Charming and brutal
Huievest
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
Skyler
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
toonnnnn
In the sixties the historical epic was in vogue,the success of Lawrence of Arabia made General Gordon a subject worth taking a chance on.The film starts with a battle between the Mahdi's troops and a British army,a massacre a disastrous result for Britain.A hero has to be found enter General Gordon,a maverick with a good record.The film stars Charlton Heston as Gordon and Laurence Olivier as the Mahdi,the scenes they share whilst fictitious are very well done.Charlton Heston outshines Olivier ,in fact this could well be Charlton Hestons best screen performance.The supporting cast is very good,Nigel Green,Ralph Richardson,Michael Horden and Richard Johnson all play their parts very well.Directed by Basil Dean,(who sadly died in a car crash) does just enough to keep you interested,the odd lull,followed by glorious action.The battle scenes are well done.This is not the greatest epic ever made,but worth a watch every now and then,preferably on a big TV screen.
joel-280
A great romp, camp galore, starring a multi-gorgeous-uniformed, shining young Charlton Heston as Gen Gordon and a walnut-colored Laurence Olivier as his opponent The Mahdi. Stupendous walk-ons of Prime Minister Gladstone and other chin-whiskered VIPs in the House of Commons -- this flick can be enjoyed either high or sober, according to the viewer's taste.One of many high points is Gordon's triumphal entry into Khartoum, which may be where Paul Wolfowitz got his fantasy about how US forces would be welcomed into Baghdad after liberating it from Saddam Hussein. Too bad life did not imitate art in this case. If you want a greatly entertaining epic about paternalistic imperialism (or just over-the-top design of military uniforms), this flick's for you!
Karl Self
The first half of Karthoum blew me away -- it's such a bold, gigantic, majestic movie with Texas-sized images. Unfortunately it lagged in the second half and became repetitive, the "pale English actor posing as inscrutable Muslim via pancake makeup and overdone accent"-shtick became obnoxious, and it ended as a one-sided glorification of "Chinese" Gordon. Shame. I had also hoped to learn more about this long-forgotten but very modern conflict, but I was disappointed.Karthoum was done a few years after the superior Lawrence Of Arabia, and it clearly pales a bit by comparison. Still, it is always, if not educational, then at least entertaining. This might have been Charlton Heston's best role, because he is allowed to act his dream persona -- gun in one hand, bible in the other, "A Hundred Colourful Ways Of Telling Your Enemy To Scoot in Arabic"-book in the third, facing the insidious enemy with his broadest and hairiest chest.
lastliberal
If this was supposed to be an epic war movie, it failed miserably. I was really hoping to see the defeat of the rebels in Sudan, much as one would hope for the defeat of the Janjaweed and the rescue of Darfur. I was sorely disappointed.The photography was magnificent, the music excellent, and the battles that were fought were impressive, but you are talking about 10% of the time spent on this film. The rest of the time was Charleton Heston just talking. he had nothing to back up his talk and was relying on rescue from the British Army. What a few hundred soldiers were going to defeat a rebel army of 20,000? Laurence Oliver was unrecognizable in makeup and a beard, but you could see the power of his acting in every word and gesture. he was magnificent.Not worth the time invested.
